ROBOTICS

Classes Starting in January 2019

Small Groups: Six students per batch

13 weeks course – 2 Hours/Week

Basic Electrical and Electronics Theory

Analogue and Digital Electronic Circuits

Hands-on Design

Call 469 543 8218 to Register

Raspberry PI 3

A group of computer scientists led by Eben Upton at the University of Cambridge’s computer laboratory in 2006 struck upon the idea of producing a cheap, educational microcomputer geared towards amateur computer enthusiasts, budding students, and children. The aim was to help provide the skills for future computer science undergraduate applicants that many of the applicants in the 1990’s possessed. This was largely because home computers of the 1980s required programming and were open to hacking. However, it would be another two years before the project became viable, and until 2012 before the Raspberry Pi was being shipped to the public. In 2012, the Raspberry Pi was ready for public consumption. Two versions of the Raspberry Pi were manufactured, namely Model A and Model B, with B being released first. Over the subsequent years, both A and B were upgraded, with the Models A+ and B+ being release and this was complemented with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi 2 in 2015.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B was released in February 2016 with a 64-bit quad core processor, onboard WiFi, Bluetooth, and USB boot capabilities. On Pi Day 2018 model 3B+ appeared with a faster 1.4 GHz processor and a three times faster network based on Gigabit Ethernet (throughput limited to ca. 300 Mbit/s by the internal USB 2.0 connection) or 2.4 / 5 GHz dual-band Wi-Fi (100 Mbit / s).

Arduino MEGA 2560

The Arduino project began in Ivrea, Italy, in 2005 with the goal of creating a device to control student-built interactive design projects that would be less expensive than other prototyping systems available at the time. Founders Massimo Banzi and David Cuartielles named the project after a local bar called Arduino (an Italian masculine first name meaning “strong friend”).

The Arduino is a small computer that can be programmed to connect and control various electronic parts. The Arduino has a number of pins that can be set as either input, which means they can receive data from items such as switches, buttons, and sensors, or output, which means they send data to control items such as motors, lights, and buzzers. This type of programmable development board is better known as a microcontroller.

The Arduino board is composed of two main elements: the hardware, or microcontroller, which is the brain of the board, and the software that is used to send the program to the brain. The software, called the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE), is available free for download.The IDE is a simple interface that runs on a computer running Windows, OS X, or Linux. You use the IDE to create a sketch (an Arduino program) that one uses to upload to the Arduino board using a PC and USB cable. The sketch tells the hardware what to do. The Arduino can be powered by batteries, USB, or an external power supply. Once the Arduino is programmed, it can be disconnected from your computer and will run independently using a power supply or batteries.